stuck in the middle...

State of the Mez

I haven't been posting much of late, mostly through lack of stuff to say and fun ways to say it... But this means you're all a bit behind with my life.

So, here goes:1) Job with lack of work have finally realised that paying me to do nothing might not be a winning business strategy. So, we're wrapping up, and I'll be finishing at the end of this week. (This is, by the way, no reflection on what they think of me. Every person in the office is either finishing work, or moving to New Caledonia, and I don't really want to relocate.)

3) Alex and Caleb have both started school, and are running around enthusiastically in their teeny little uniforms. They're so cute! And so awesome! And so grown up!

4) Alex has developed a love of superheroes, and keeps asking me (as resident superhero expert) about their powers, and their origin stories. I am being taxed to the limits of my knowledge, and am being forced into doing extensive homework to keep up. (Next assignment: find out how The Flash got his powers, and let Alex know.)

5) Caleb and I have been reading many books. We went through The Enchanted Wood (which he's already read several times with Mummy), and discussed the plot in very serious detail. Then we looked at his BODY BOOK, all about human anatomy, and he asked me many questions. Since most of my medical knowledge comes from reading a similar book 20 years ago, I was mostly answering his questions by quickly scanning each page to see if it could tell me what to say...

6) Josh has started paying attention to adults - as people, rather than as helpful scenery. At Caleb's birthday party on Saturday, he told me that he didn't know who a whole lot of people were, and asked me to identify each of them. (It's strange having to put things in little-kid relationship terms. Some people who I'd normally say were "brother-in-law's sister" and "my/my sister's friend" were suddenly "Caleb's auntie" and "your auntie's friend, who knows Caleb".)

7) Nathan is walking! Everywhere! He keeps running over for hugs, now that he realises how exciting it'll be when he gets there...

8) Michael, meanwhile, is mostly finding ways to be extremely cute. And little. And cute some more.

9) dr_carrot has moved into my house. This is awfully fun, especially as I'm getting to see her more often than I have in years. We are, however, having long disputes as to what you're supposed to do with bread. (She puts it on the bench - where I argue that it goes stale. I put it in the freezer - where she maintains it loses all the fresh flavour, nice crust, and general breadiness.)

10) I entirely reset my phone last night (on advice from Apple), hoping that this would stop the ridiculous battery issues I've been having. This lost my background and ringtones, took away my favourite contacts, websites, and Bible translations, reset my layout, and got rid of all my progress at Angry Birds. It didn't solve my battery issues, as I discovered on the train this morning. *sighs* This evening, I'm going to see if I can get all my data back again...

11) The latest cross-stitch is nearing completion! Yay! Now I need to decide what to do with it once it's done.

12) I have discovered a helpful thing about Harry Potter. Normally, wandering around reading a book will get the same comment from everyone: "Must be a great book!" This irritates me. If I'm reading Harry Potter, however, everyone instantly starts telling me which book is their favourite, and enthusing about the plotline of the one I'm reading. It makes a nice change.

As someone who just had to reformat her computer and set it all back to factory settings and thus had to organize iTunes all over again (FIVE times because I kept accidentally deleting all the checkmarks...don't ask), I feel your iPhone pain. *hugs you*

My main worry is about what's going to happen when I get a new phone. Apparently it's not a hardware issue, it's in the software - so what's going to happen when I transfer all my software across into the awesome new phone? I don't want to have this same issue for the next several years! *cries pathetically*

Alex is the oldest and will soon turn six - he's Sister #1's kid.Then Sisters #1 and #2 have sort of alternated pregnancies, ending up with Alex (5), Josh (3), and Michael (0) in one family, and Caleb (5) and Nathan (1) in the other.

All are very cute, and have a devoted auntie squeeing about them on a regular basis...